


if you hear him howling around your kitchen door

by covered_lanterns



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Multi, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4989652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/covered_lanterns/pseuds/covered_lanterns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're ours," Zayn says, careful, like he'd been in the beginning, when he was always trying not to spook Louis. It makes him a little far away somehow, the wariness, a step removed. Louis isn't used to it anymore. "You're ours and we're yours, you know that."</p><p>Louis doesn't laugh in his face, but only because he really incredibly doesn't feel like laughing right now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you hear him howling around your kitchen door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Browneyedbeauty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Browneyedbeauty/gifts).



"What are you talking about?" Liam's voice is squeaking out a little on him, he can hear it, but he can't grab hold of himself enough to steady it. 

Or Louis; he can't catch hold of Louis either, Louis who's pacing around and pouncing on random piles of his things, possibly packing a bag and possibly just enjoying wrecking the room. You usually can't tell with Louis. All Liam can tell is that he's staying out of reach, which means Liam can't put his arms around him and shake him until his teeth rattle and his brain starts working like a normal person's.

"You heard me," Louis says, dragging a big pile of shirts out of a drawer and dumping them on the bed. He starts going through them, tossing most of them aside to flop over the side of the bed and achieve the wrinkly, dust-ball-y life they'd always dreamed of. If Louis ever cleaned his room he'd probably find enough hairballs to knit himself a sweater.

"I didn't, though," Liam says, flapping a helpless arm at the bag Louis is somehow managing to slowly fill, in between all the throwing things around. "Because what you said didn't make any sense."

Louis straightens and quirks an eyebrow at him. "Well, it's still what I said and what I'm going to do, so –" he gives one of those shrugs he has, elegant and effortless, somehow suggesting the person he's talking to isn't important enough to be clumsy over. Liam really does want to shake him.

"It's the _full moon_ tomorrow and you're _going to see a witch_ ," Liam says, holding on to the back of a chair very tightly. "Why would you do that? Even you have more sense than that, Louis. It's the stupidest idea I've ever heard of."

The look Louis throws him is so full of venom Liam actually lets go of the chair to fall back a step. It's not like he isn't used, by now, to how blatantly Louis can't stand him, but this is a lot, even for the two of them.

"Yeah, how crazy is that," Louis says. Liam doesn't know this tone. He knows a lot of Louis's tones by now, especially the ones that are some variation on angry or annoyed or offended or frustrated, and this one is definitely in the same box, but in some corner of it Liam hasn't seen before. "Just imagine, somebody doing something that doesn't go with the Liam Payne Rules of How Every Single Thing Should Go. The world's going to end any second now. But you know what? That isn't your problem, because I'm going to take my stupid decisions out of here and go get this fucking _fixed_ , and none of us are going to have to deal with this shit again."

It would be useless to ask what the hell he's talking about again. It would probably be useless to demand to know what he thinks he's about to fix that's worth taking a risk this big and this pointless. But Liam still has to stop him somehow, even if all he wants is to back away like Louis so obviously wants him to. This corner of the box is the worst one, apparently. He's never seen Louis look this way before.

Or maybe it isn't. Maybe this is how Louis has been all along, exactly the same, because it isn't like he has any reason to be any different. Maybe it only feels different because Liam has recently made the dumbest series of dumb choices in a life of mostly very careful decisions. Now, in the middle of the usual anger and annoyance and faint resentment and pushed-aside offended hurt, he feels – hurt, really, still, but a kind that's impossible to push aside somehow. A kind that's worse because Liam is never very good at guarding himself, but now he's somehow left himself so much more open to attack than he meant to, around the one least safe person he knows.

He was never going to win this argument, anyway. When Louis gets one of his crazy, reckless ideas in his head, Liam is the last person he's going to listen to. But it's not like Liam can just let him go ahead with it, and Zayn won't be back until tomorrow, so there's no real choice but to do his pointless best, really. The lines of Louis's back when he turns away again don't matter; the way Liam can remember tracing over them, slow and sleepy, until Louis shook him off with a huffed laugh, that doesn't matter either. 

The only bearing it has, that moment, the way Louis had rolled onto his side and then tucked his head into Liam's neck and curled into him and went back to sleep, is the stupid way it seems to take Liam off-balance now, take his legs from under him, so he can't center his weight enough to put up a decent fight.

"Look, just," he says. It's not like he isn't used to flailing around Louis, always surprised and somehow unsure of everything he knows, of all the things he really does _know_ and which Louis _doesn't_ but can somehow make Liam doubt anyway. "Can't you at least wait until Zayn gets back? You don't want to listen to me, fine, at least wait and talk it over with him. Whatever the hell's going on in your head right now, don't you think he deserves to know?"

He can still see the curve of Louis's shoulder blades through his shirt, the slope of his shoulders, the funny way he always holds his balance, ready to fight in a way Liam will never be. But they're weird now, static. Drawn in, somehow, even though he hasn't even shifted.

"I don't want to," Louis says. It isn't angry or condescending or scathing. Drawn in, too, and weird, and suddenly unfamiliar. Louis is a constant surprise, often a nasty shock, but he's always familiar, somehow, has been since nearly the beginning. Liam never thought to question it. He supposes it just made sense, being pack and all.

He waits for more, for an explanation, but it doesn't come. Louis just stands there. 

The room is small, because the apartment is small. Once Liam makes the decision to move, there are only a few steps to take. He's raising his hand before he even gets there, moving in to lay it in the center of Louis's back, says, "Louis –"

But Louis isn't there anymore, wrenching away and spinning around to face him again. As usual, he controls his movement and his speed much better when he isn't thinking about it. It isn't graceful, exactly – Zayn is the only graceful wolf around, really – but it's precise and quick, with a kind of staccato fluidity that always catches Liam's eye even when he doesn't mean to let it. There's no question of not giving all his attention to it now, other than the fact that it's over in a flash, Louis staring at him with a face Liam can't read at all.

"Don't fucking touch me," he snarls, and Liam resists the urge to step away again, stares back blankly because what, what is even happening, why hasn't this guy made any sense Liam can understand ever. Not once since that first moment when he was lying, asleep and naked and alone, in the middle of a small grubby neighborhood park where no wolf was supposed to be.

"What's wrong with you," Liam says, not even angry for that one moment, just so utterly helpless he can't imagine what else he's going to do.

"Nothing," Louis says. His face is almost normal again, almost well-known. He bends down to the bag again, jerks the zipper closed even though it can't have all the supplies he needs for even one night, never mind whatever he's actually packing for. "Nothing at all. I just don't want to do this anymore."

"Do _what_ ," Liam demands, because really there are any number of possible answers to that question, but Louis just ignores him and picks the bag up and goes.

~*~*~

The tragic and hilarious thing is that Zayn actually thought the problems were over once Liam and Louis started having sex.

Or, not over, but at least – better. On the way to something approaching a situation that wasn't annoying as fuck to even be around.

He'd been impressed, really, because Liam was practical and liked to work things out, but the idea of this way of going about it wasn't something that would have come naturally to him. And Louis – well, Louis did have a kind of mad genius to him sometimes, Zayn knew him enough after eight months to know that, but he also knew that the genius part was usually more inclined toward creating problems, not solving them.

So all in all it had seemed pretty incredible, especially because Zayn himself had never thought about it and, unlike either of them, he actually had some common sense.

He still didn't know how exactly it started. What Liam said about it was confused and disjointed and mostly focused on why it had been a terrible idea, and the one time Zayn tried to prod Louis about it, Louis just seemed horrified at the very suggestion of discussing it with him. It was at some point during the time Zayn was away at the artist workshop in April, he knew that much. Asking more, even thinking about it that much more, seemed wrong somehow, once Louis made it so clear that he didn't think it was any of Zayn's business.

 

The workshop had lasted nine days. It was in Maine, far enough that coming back for the weekend wouldn't have made any sense.

He'd known it would be hard, obviously. When he packed the evening before he left, he tried to talk it over with Liam. But Liam had been determinedly helpful and cheerful, talking about how much fun Zayn would have and how much he'd learn. He kept methodically looking through cupboards, reminding Zayn of things to take and do and look up. 

The fact was that Zayn was crap at packing and organization, that he absolutely would have forgotten half of those things, would probably have been better off just lying down and letting Liam pack for him, which he was clearly dying to do. But the fact was also that whenever Liam stopped for a minute he was just standing there, bouncing on his heels, and the smell of his anxiety was slowly becoming the only thing in the room. It was making it impossible to think, impossible to tell where Zayn's own anxiety started and where Liam's, instead of ending, was seeping into Zayn and making his body think it should be more and more on edge with every passing moment.

It was probably good that Louis wasn't there, really. He'd sent the world's shortest text to let Zayn know he was working late and probably staying over at a friend's, as if Zayn was going to believe it was just coincidence that it meant he wouldn't see Louis before he left. 

When he got it that afternoon, Zayn had just felt frustrated and tired and annoyingly affectionate. Of course that was how Louis would go about it, of course it made perfect sense even if Zayn didn't understand it at all. But now he was a little glad, too. Just the idea of three wolves bleeding nerves out into that tiny space was almost enough to give him a migraine.

Not that two wolves weren't bad enough. "Let's go for a run," Zayn said, in the middle of Liam muttering about the benefits of taking a spare deodorant and how Zayn would probably forget he had either and try to steal someone else's, and then be amazed to find out people generally weren't thrilled about that. Liam had an unhealthy attachment to his belongings. Zayn had been breaking him out of it for years now, but it was slow going. 

"I mean, it's one thing if it's the spray kind," Liam said. "What? You never want to go for a run."

"Well, we can't stay here," Zayn said. "We're like three minutes away from one of us breaking a window or something."

Liam's confused frown melted away into sheepishness once he realized what they were standing in the middle of. "Sorry," he said. "I guess I'm a little worried."

"I know," Zayn said, because at that point he honestly thought most of the nerves were Liam's. Liam was all about pack in a way Zayn had never been; it still amazed Zayn that he'd come to Chicago at all, that the big city and Zayn and the idea of a different life were enough to pull him away from the pack they'd been born into. 

It wasn't that Zayn hadn't missed them, too, hadn't spent the first few months waking up from dreams of Home feeling devastated and empty, didn't still weigh every achievement and every step forward against the faint pull in his stomach calling him back to Wyoming. But he'd always taken it for granted that he was self-sufficient in a way Liam wasn't, that Liam would never have moved to Chicago by himself and that Zayn would have, even though it would have been a hell of a lot harder.

It wasn't until the fifth day of the workshop, really, when he was running his third mile and trying to convince himself that he couldn't just keep running all the way to Chicago, that it wouldn't have made any sense even in wolf form and it was nowhere near the full moon, that he'd thought to question any of that. He was too fucking cold, even though this was more exercise than he ever got while human, and he couldn't sleep, and he couldn't remember why he'd thought it was worth it to come out here, why he'd let Liam's words and Louis's reluctant nods talk him into it. 

It was probably starting on the fourth mile when he'd suddenly remembered, for the first time in years, that Chicago had been Liam's idea in the first place, that Liam had joined forces with Zayn's mom to harass Zayn into filling in the application forms for SAIC when it all seemed too big and impossible to mess with. That the reason Zayn actually went back to sleep, those first months alone in the city, was that Liam always woke up too and insisted on making him tea, tangling their legs together while they sat on the couch and breathed each other in, Zayn's face pressed against Liam's shoulder and Liam's face buried in his hair. 

Going to the workshop, all the way out in Maine -- the truth was that he'd thought it would be good. There were a lot of excellent reasons to go, experience and connections and exposure and the ability to spend a week and a half completely immersed in something he loved. But almost above all of that, he'd thought he'd enjoy the chance to be by himself for so many days, surrounded by people he barely knew, people he didn't share any connection with. A completely new experience. 

He knew it would be hard, he knew he'd miss them, but somehow he'd expected that feeling to be a much smaller part than it was. He'd thought just the relief of not listening to the two of them sniping at each other all the time would almost be worth it.

He did learn a lot of things in the workshop, got inspired for his next project, even made a few connections. But that was probably the most startling thing he'd found out there, dragging his tired self through hour after hour and feeling the lack of them through every inch of his body. His tiny weird pack of unlikely chance and unexpected choice.

"So did you miss us?" Louis said, a week later, sitting at the opposite end of the couch from Zayn. His feet were on the couch cushion and his arms were around his knees, and his posture was loose and casual enough, but he wasn't looking at Zayn, staring ahead at the TV screen instead. 

He hadn't looked Zayn in the eyes since he'd come back, had barely touched him since that first moment of hugging him so hard that it almost made up for all those days away. He'd been tense and jumpy and standoffish and quiet, and it had made Zayn a little angry, that he was getting punished for daring to go away and do something they'd all agreed he should.

But now, looking at Louis's hair falling over his forehead and at the curl of his arms, at how carefully he was keeping his eyes away, at the reluctant way he'd just forced himself open and vulnerable and how terrible he was at pretending he'd done no such thing, Zayn couldn't find that anger anymore. It seemed silly that he'd ever resented Louis for being himself. Louis was always himself. It was one of the things Zayn loved best about him.

"Like you wouldn't believe," he said. "It was shitty. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was great, I'm glad I went –" he ignored the face Louis made, because of course he did, and because at least Louis was looking at him now, "But it was so shitty, Lou. You have no idea."

Louis looked down at his knees. "I have some idea. A little."

"That means you missed me too, right?" Zayn said, smirking, and when Louis made a scornful noise and refused to look up again Zayn had to laugh, the relief of being back and close running through him all over again. He scooted closer and tugged on Louis's elbow until Louis made an aborted flailing motion and toppled over, falling into Zayn, and ignored Louis's indignant muttering without pointing out that he wasn't making any move to sit up again.

It was a little while later, soothed half to sleep himself from the repetitive motion of his fingers through Louis's hair, that Zayn said, "At least you guys had each other. But I'm glad nobody got murdered while I wasn't here." He hadn't thought anything of the way Louis's whole body stiffened; if asked, he'd probably have said Louis was seizing up at the very idea that having Liam around was any help at all.

He was half asleep, and maybe that's why he didn't connect it to the night before, Liam's face half-visible in the darkness of their room, the halting way Liam had said, "Because I don't even understand why it happened. We were just yelling and then I was kissing him, does that even make sense?" And the wordless, clearly unsatisfied even in half-seen outline, way that he had shrugged when Zayn had said, "I guess it's better than just yelling some more, right?"

Louis was definitely less jumpy after that evening on the couch. Zayn had taken that as a sign that all was well, or at least getting there.

~*~*~

In April, Zayn goes to Maine for nine days and Louis takes the opportunity to fuck things up worse than he ever has before in his life. In August, Zayn leaves town for three days, and everything falls apart. Logically, the conclusion should be that Zayn should never leave Chicago. Louis supposes it isn't his place to point that out anymore, though, if it ever was in the first place.

There's a specific noise Liam makes every time Louis bites him somewhere on his stomach, sometimes high up on his hips, a favorite spot just over the jut of bone. It's a weird noise, somewhere between a moan and something sweeter. He always makes it when Louis is biting lightly, letting his mouth go soft and hot on Liam's skin. Louis always ends up biting too hard, until the noise becomes a groan of protest, Liam tugging him back up, trying to kiss him into compliance even though that barely ever works.

The point is, that noise isn't why Louis does any of it. It isn't why he lets Liam kiss him, that first time before he even knows that noise exists, not the reason he steps into Liam or why he ends up shoving Liam's jeans down his thighs and letting Liam get his own pants out of the way. He does it because he's angry and frustrated and crawling out of his skin with the way Zayn isn't there, with the way Liam is always there, with the constant shoving match they've been in since day one, with the way Liam is so stubborn and wrongheaded and righteous and the way he tastes in that first moment of contact. 

Those are probably still the reasons he does it all those times after, even though Zayn is back, even though Louis isn't always angry. It's not that noise, and it's not the way Liam looks with his head thrown back and his eyes shut tight, not the way he looks at Louis sometimes, like Louis's breath catching at the way Liam's hand feels on his skin is somehow fascinating. It isn't any of it, until it is.

It takes him a long time to catch on. He's always been good at kidding himself. He just thinks about it as something that happens, a place to put all of their annoyance with each other that sometimes feels better than fighting. It's just a fact of this weird new life, like the way his stomach swoops low sometimes when Zayn smiles a particular way, the way Louis had thought one morning months and months ago, _Oh, I'm in love with him,_ and then laughed at his own overdramatic brain. 

He doesn't wonder at the way he feels when he finds them standing in the kitchen some mornings, all the way into each other's personal space, at the way he both does and doesn't want to look away sometimes when they smile at each other, at the nights when they're a little too loud and he needs to turn up the volume on his earbuds until even his new hearing can't get through. It's just a different version of how he's felt since the beginning, really. 

He's never been good at being a third wheel, never been good at sharing attention, worse at getting the dregs after someone else had their fill. And that was before he had all those weird new instincts and urges and directives in his head, before his life was suddenly completely mixed up with two other people's lives. Before this pack thing he's still working his way through, this bond they'd tried to explain, looking to each other for help, clearly finding it as hard as Louis would have if someone asked him to describe what breathing air felt like.

It's just the way things are, a kind of fucked up choice in the middle of a kind of fucked up life. It's not a thing. It's so much not a thing that Zayn doesn't even mind it, which, yes, isn't really a measure Louis ever expected to put on the question of sleeping with someone else's boyfriend, but if he understood how their minds work about some of the most basic things in life then he and Liam would probably have been fighting a lot less in the first place. 

He'd been tempted to doubt Liam that first time – when Louis had managed to tear himself away a little, much too far into the kiss to really be considered right, and garble out something that included 'Zayn' and 'what the hell' but not much coherency otherwise, when Liam had looked first appropriately confused and then bizarrely clueless and then still confused but very certain as he said that Zayn wouldn't be bothered – but for all his faults, Liam wasn't someone who'd ever lie about something like that. 

And Zayn was absolutely clearly not bothered. He seemed to think about it as some kind of great pack bonding exercise, or maybe that wasn't how he meant it, but Louis was a little afraid that if he stopped and tried to figure it out his brain would explode. Ultimately he supposed some people were just built for open relationships, even if Louis himself absolutely couldn't fathom being okay with that.

Maybe that thought should have clued him in that he was being much more of an idiot than he actually realized.

~*~*~

The first time Liam had seen Chicago, he'd been eighteen years old. He was climbing down the bus steps, Zayn one step behind and above him, hand tucked tightly into the hood of Liam's sweatshirt. Liam hadn't known exactly which of them was protecting the other or from what, but it had seemed right, seemed necessary. The same way they'd stayed glued to each other at every rest stop, the same way he'd spent half the ride holding Zayn's hand between them, the way they'd been falling asleep tipped into each other with their heads in weird angles instead of just leaning against the chair backs.

Later, he always remembered how that had felt, that churn in his stomach that said they needed to huddle together and watch out and find safety. How strange it was to watch the scenery change with the miles, the same but not, and how every time they stepped off the bus the air smelled different and then different again. How Chicago had smelled more different still in the early morning air, a thousand things all pressed together, dirty streets and lake water and an unnatural number of people.

What he always remembered was how his heart had thumped, how he'd imagined he could feel his blood, running through him faster than it was supposed to. How he couldn't stop taking it in, that weird new air, the way the sunlight hit the buildings, the low sounds of the city already alive at that early hour, audible over the noise of the few other people who'd climbed down after them. 

Liam knew what he was supposed to do now, his parents had helped him make arrangements weeks before, but he'd stood there in the cold street and had to fight down the urge to tug Zayn's hand off his shirt and hold it in his own hand instead, to pull him along and just run into the city as hard as they could, lugging their suitcases behind them.

It came to him in a flash once, that memory -- unprompted by anything at all -- while he was hovering over Louis's body, holding himself up with his forearms against the mattress, staring down into his eyes. They were in Louis's bed, because that was where they always ended up; the one time Liam had started to tug them into the main bedroom, where the bed, after all, was bigger, Louis had looked at him like he was insane. It wasn't exactly the first time he'd looked at Liam like he thought there was something fundamentally wrong with him, but there was something else there, too, something Liam couldn't identify but which made him uncomfortable and unhappy, made him shy away from the idea of ever bringing it up again.

Louis was grinning back up at him. It was sharp but not hostile, only the edge of mockery, invitation and challenge all rolled up together. 

That was probably why he'd remembered that moment, really. Louis was a little like the city – something Liam could never fully understand or really have, something he couldn't explain wanting but did anyway, clear and immediate and undeniable, simple and convoluted all at once. Something that had built up so slowly Liam hadn't even noticed the movement; in a way, those first few months after they'd found Louis, after he'd moved in, were a lot like those years of lying on his back next to Zayn in the fields around town and talking idly about the future. He'd thought he knew what things were like back then, too; what he wanted, how his life would look. It never even occurred to him that he might ever want to leave Bakerville, just like it never even occurred to him that he might ever want Louis to stare up at him with that look in his eyes.

Mostly, of course, they were very different things. Wanting Chicago had been completely senseless, alien, unmoored in any reality Liam or anyone he knew could imagine. Werewolves didn't leave their packs for no reason, werewolves didn't like cities; he and his friends talked about going to other states in the same way they talked about becoming astronauts, a nice idea you probably wouldn't want the reality of. Wanting Louis wasn't like that at all. He was pack, after all; of course Liam wanted him, even if this new part of it had taken him by surprise.

It was also different in that, pack or not, Louis was Louis, making his own rules as he went, and half the time he clearly didn't want any part of Liam at all. Somehow Liam had never doubted, since that first breathless moment in the street with the bus pulling away behind them, that Chicago wanted him back.

He used to try to explain it when he called home, to his family and to the friends who used to spin stories about future travels with him, to pack members who'd known him since he was born and couldn't make sense of this wild decision. But he could never find the right words to make them understand it – how he and Zayn had both belonged there since the first moment, how they loved it for no reason he could describe, and for all the reasons he could describe well enough but which sounded like a nightmare to the people he'd grown up with.

And now that there was the Louis issue, everything was more complicated. Every time Liam talked to anyone from their old pack there was that question in the air now, that expectation, the way it hadn't been there since that first year, since people had started slowly getting used to the idea of Liam and Zayn being away, separate, no longer part of the pack. He rarely mentioned Louis unless he had a specific question to ask, because that only made it worse. 

It was so hard to ask questions, anyway. None of them knew Louis, who'd flat-out refused to go back with Liam and Zayn on their two visits, and Louis never fit into the generic answers Liam got. Maybe it was their pack that didn't fit, too – too small and too new and too unlikely. In the end, it seemed like the only way was just to muddle their own way through, or give it up completely and go back to Bakerville.

"You should come back, Liam," his mom had said, that first month after they'd found Louis, when things had just started settling down a little from the initial chaos. "It's not right. It was never right, you two out there by yourselves, but a new werewolf? Sweetheart, there's so much he needs to learn. He should be part of a proper pack." He'd almost been able to ignore how much that stung, buried under how afraid he was that she was right.

But Louis hadn't wanted any of it, not to leave Chicago and not to go to some small town in Wyoming, not even when Zayn had suggested, doubtful, that the pack in California wasn't that far out of San Diego, that Louis might find it easier there.

That had been one of the bigger fights, Zayn tense and unhappy by Liam's side, both of them trying to push for something they were barely managing to convince themselves of and completely transparent with it.

"So your mom gets to tell me what to do, now?" Louis had said. "It's not enough that I have to keep getting lectures from you?"

"She's right, though," Liam said. "It's not like me or Zayn know how to do this right. We were just kids when we had new werewolves before. I don't even think any of them ever got bit without choosing it."

"Great," Louis said. "So those people don't know what they're talking about, either. I'll just take my chances with you guys."

"You wouldn't have to go alone, Louis," Zayn said. Liam blinked. He couldn't imagine that was ever in question for any of them, but Louis was looking startled and a little off-balance. "We'd be going back with you," Zayn said. "We told you we were your pack if you wanted us to be. That's not something you just take back so you don't have to move." 

"Sure," Louis said, visibly regaining his balance with effort. "And I told you then I wasn't going to Wyoming to live with a bunch of strangers or – wherever those other packs are, whatever, you think I want to be in a hippie commune with seventy strangers? It's been crazy enough already. You don't have to help, I told you that already, you don't owe me shit –"

"Lou," Zayn said, quietly reproachful.

"—But it's either you or nothing," Louis said. "I got by fine by myself for two months. I can do it again."

"That's not an option," Liam said, unable to stop himself from making it sound firm and final, even though he knew the way Louis's eyes were going to narrow even before it happened. "What about – we could just try it. Go back for a few months. You've never lived out of Chicago, right? Maybe you'll like it."

"Sure, let's just all quit our jobs and go," Louis said. "And what about him?" he jerked his chin at Zayn, who just quirked an eyebrow in return. "He's just starting to get somewhere. How's the art scene in Nowhereville? Are the cows into minimalism?"

"I'll manage," Zayn said, which wasn't necessarily true, Liam thought. He loved Chicago in different ways than Liam, some of them overlapping and similar, some of them made of lines and brushstrokes and people who could see things in what he did that Liam didn't have the right eyes for -- who showed him things that made him excited and thoughtful, full of words he'd tell Liam and Louis while they were making dinner and setting the table, words neither of them understood as completely as he did, in a tone of voice that made them almost clear enough anyway.

"It's a nice place," Liam said, inanely, because better words were hard to find in the face of how much he agreed with Louis.

"Right, that's why the two of you couldn't wait to get out," Louis said, and while that wasn't the reason at all, that had been the end of the discussion.

The funny thing was that for a long time Liam had thought they'd made the right call. Muddling through by themselves wasn't something anyone he knew approved of, but it seemed to be right for them. 

For every stupid argument and angry look, there was Louis pretending he wasn't stepping closer into Liam's side while they waited in line at the store. For every moment of senseless worry when Louis made some new unnecessarily reckless decision, there was getting home late to Zayn lying on the couch with his head in Louis's lap, Zayn's lashes dark shadows on his cheeks in the dim light from the television, and the soft look on Louis's face, unbroken by Liam coming in. 

For that one full moon when Louis had cut it too close and almost ended up still out on the streets when the moon came up – and he'd tried to play it down later, because wolf form still allowed for some control, enough that he wouldn't hurt anyone, enough that he believed he could defend himself, but the fact was that there was still so much he didn't understand about what was out there and how vulnerable they were for that one night – for that one full moon, there were all the other full moons, wards up and safeguards in place, huddling together in a tangle of fur and awkward paws and sleepy warmth.

There was no safe way to be out and running in the city, nowhere outside the city that Liam knew well enough to trust, but those tangles almost made up for it, Zayn's head stretched heavy on Liam's neck and Louis idly nosing at his ear.

He'd still believed they were doing okay that Wednesday, when Zayn was getting ready to leave for the new project in Springfield. He'd been invited to be part of a public art exhibition there, and it meant he'd be making multiple trips for a few months, but they were all short ones; the only real problem was that this first trip couldn't be rescheduled, and it was going to bring Zayn back too close to the full moon for Liam's comfort.

He was trying not to worry about it, trying to let himself be distracted by Louis and Zayn, who were doing some terrible version of playing catch around the living room and periodically sending something crashing to the floor. Nothing had broken so far, and mostly Liam was just glad Louis was there this time, and glad that the looming threat to everything on their shelves was something to focus on. It was so nice, really, carefully folding shirts and dodging flailing limbs, Zayn's breathless laughter as Louis caught him around the waist and tried to wrestle the ball away, the small packing breaks when one or the other of them tried to use Liam as a shield while he tried to keep the toothbrush in his hand high enough that they wouldn't send it flying. It was nice to store it up for when Zayn would be gone, and nice to know that it wouldn't be so long this time, nice to be able to hope that they'd be fine while he was gone, less on edge and not at each other's throats the whole time, that maybe they'd be okay together.

Two days later it even seemed like he was right to hope. They'd barely fought beyond some almost-friendly sniping over some show neither of them really wanted to watch the first evening. The full moon always worried Liam in the city, but somehow he felt like they were keeping each other calm instead of the feedback loop of stress they'd been in that time when Zayn went to Maine. 

Louis had helped him check the wards on all the window sills, watched while Liam corrected one that had gotten disturbed since the last full moon, offering a running commentary and only rolling his eyes instead of arguing when Liam wouldn't let him take over. He'd rolled his eyes again when Liam did another circuit of the apartment, unnecessary to anything but Liam's own nerves, but he'd also checked the train schedule and read it to Liam even though they both knew when Zayn would be getting in the next morning.

It was peaceful and pleasant, the whole evening, the wards and the vague planning for going to the lake on Sunday if they weren't too tired, dinner with Louis's ridiculous stories about his co-workers. They washed dishes afterwards, side by side, Louis taking too much joy in spraying Liam with water but managing to actually wash the frying pan, Liam managing to flick soap bubbles onto his jaw and shirt and ignoring Louis's indignant squawking with newly-learned ease. When he turned off the water Liam turned to look at him, and when Louis went up on his tiptoes to kiss him Liam smiled into it, new ease here too, and let himself go boneless enough that there was almost no effort to them fitting together.

He hadn't really been thinking about it when they fell asleep. It wasn't until Saturday morning, blinking his eyes open to a half-familiar ceiling, that it occurred to him that it was the first time they'd slept together, literally slept together, all the night through. Even when Zayn pulled all-nighters in the studio it had somehow never happened before. 

He wondered why, just then, drowsy and content, Louis still tucked into his side the way he had been when Liam had closed his eyes. It was so nice, really; other than Zayn still hours away from home, he couldn't think of anything that would make this morning better. Maybe a cup of really good coffee already made and waiting on the bedside table, but nothing else. He wouldn't have thought he'd feel that way, waking up with Louis breathing into his skin.

He must have moved without meaning to then, because Louis moved too, and then grumbled almost inaudibly under his breath, and then opened his eyes, hazy and unfocused on Liam's face from too close up.

Liam smiled at him, close-mouthed, because he was awake enough to think about morning breath. Louis smiled back, automatic and unguarded. They lay there and smiled at each other, and morning breath wasn't so much of an issue after all.

Then Louis blinked again and sat up abruptly, losing his balance and almost rolling away off the bed. He shook off the hand Liam put out to steady him and half-fell away, stumbling to his feet on the floor and turning to stare at Liam with wide, startled eyes.

"What?" Liam said, pushing himself up a little on his elbows and staring back. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Louis said. "Nothing. No. I have to go to the bathroom."

He was there for so long, refusing to come out when Liam knocked on the door, that Liam became convinced something really was wrong, even if Louis kept insisting through the door that it wasn't. And he was clearly right, because when Louis came out he'd apparently formulated a plan that involved leaving forever, and also, incidentally, choosing the day before the full moon to go see a witch.

~*~*~

The witch lives in Riverdale. Louis has to switch buses twice to get there. It takes forever, and he took too long to make up his mind, and too long arguing with Liam. Liam has a car; even if he waits for Zayn to arrive, Louis doesn't have enough of a head start.

It's an office building on a Saturday morning, so it probably makes sense that it feels abandoned. Nothing ominous at all. Louis tries the building's heavy door without pressing the button for the intercom, because he'll be just as happy with the advantage of surprise. 

Unexpectedly, it swings open. Completely expectedly, given Louis's luck, it doesn't have time to swing completely closed again behind him before Liam is pulling it open again.

"Oh, come on," Louis says, mostly to himself. He stalks off towards the elevators.

"Louis, wait," Zayn says.

"I don't want to wait," Louis says, still too far from the elevators but unable to resist the urge to spin around and face them. "What are you doing here?"

"We just want you to come back with us," Liam says. "Let's just get out of here and go talk about this."

"I don't want to talk about it, either," Louis says, too loud. "I decided to come here. You can't just come pick me up like I'm some – some lost kid or package or a, a puppy or something."

"That's not what we're doing," Zayn says. "You don't need to be lost for us to want to take you back home. We're worried. We don't know what happened, and this place is dangerous. Especially today."

He's still in the boots he had on when he left for Springfield, Louis notices suddenly, the boots Louis got him for his birthday, the boots he spent days looking through every shoe store in sight for, because Zayn cares about things like that. He can't tell if it's weird that the thought hurts. 

"I don’t belong to you," Louis snarls.

Zayn and Liam exchange a glance. Completely tuned in, just like always, completely synced up, completely confused about why Louis can't just fall in step. As if he could. As if he'd ever want to.

"Of course you do," Zayn says. He looks at Louis like he's waiting for Louis to take it back, to explain what he means, other than the very clear and obvious meaning any sane person in the world would immediately agree with but these two lunatics seem unable to grasp.

"Not like," Liam says, a heroic effort to feel his way through kindergarten logic. "Not in a way where we're the boss of you, or anything, not you're-ours-so-we-can-tell-you-what-to-do, just –"

"Oh, really? Because you try telling me what to do all the time," Louis says, even though that's not even entirely what he meant, not everything he meant. At least that part's easier to talk about. At least the two of them have some vague understanding that this part even exists.

"But that's not why," Liam says, distressed. "I just – we grew up in this, okay, and it's only been a few months for you, and you never stop and _think_ \--"

"Also, Liam's kind of naturally bossy," Zayn says. "In case you haven't noticed." Which is rich, because Zayn is the one person Liam always listens to, because Liam clearly only leads the way because Zayn finds that comfortable, because he stops the moment Zayn puts up any objection at all, the way he never does with Louis. 

Just like now, when Liam huffs out a half-annoyed breath, derailed, but doesn't protest, seems almost relieved somehow beneath it, subsiding into watching Louis in silence.

"I don't care," Louis says. He's angry now, and that's good. It makes it easier to shut anything else he's feeling out; makes it easier to say whatever words are likely to work, without paying enough attention to know if he actually believes them. "I'm not yours like that, I'm not yours like anything. I never wanted any of this shit."

"Louis, come on," Liam says, looking completely lost. Louis doesn't know what to do with them sometimes. They're like aliens, almost the same as everybody else until you turn a corner and realize they don't even speak the same language as you.

"You're ours," Zayn says, careful, like he'd been in the beginning when he was always trying not to spook Louis. It makes him a little far away somehow, the wariness, a step removed. Louis isn't used to it anymore. "You're ours and we're yours, you know that."

Louis doesn't laugh in his face, but only because he really incredibly doesn't feel like laughing right now.

"Louis," Liam says again. He looks even more uncertain now, and something else too, incredulous, almost scared. "You do know that, right? You can't not know that."

Louis does know; despite the anger, it's impossible not to pay attention now. He knows what part of what he said was true and what was a complete lie. He knows what part of what they're saying is the lie, too, even if they don't. It's monumentally unfair, and he was happier when he could tell himself none of it was true, but there you have it.

"I know your fucked up little werewolf cult didn't teach you some basic things," he says, low and even. He'd like to say it with dignity, head high, but it's impossible not to pull into himself in a futile last-ditch effort to protect himself from something he can't keep out. "I get that you think all the rules somehow work differently for you. But being the guy that lives in your spare room that you sometimes hate-fuck on the side doesn't make you mine."

Liam gapes at him. 

Zayn isn't gaping. He looks even more distant now, drawn into himself. His eyes are dark and thoughtful on Louis's face. 

Louis looks back at him, because it's easier. Sometimes he knows exactly how to get to Liam – knows him like an open book, like the back of his hand – but sometimes he gets to Liam and doesn't even know how it happened. He half knows and half completely doesn't why Liam looks gut-punched right now. It's disconcerting.

Zayn is easier because he looks impervious like this, as if Louis couldn't hurt him even if he tried. It's not all that much easier, because he's always hated it when Zayn looks out of reach, the way he can seem like a marble statue who only happens to be sharing space with you. It's still better than looking at Liam's face, though.

"What about me?" Zayn asks. He sounds genuinely curious. "Am I yours?"

Louis almost does laugh this time. "What kind of fucked up question is that?"

Zayn shrugs. "It's a fair one, I think."

There are a lot of things Louis could say to that. He could point out that he's still just the guy who lives in Zayn's spare bedroom, except there isn't even hate-fucking there. It's an absurd question with an obvious answer. The very fact of asking it is just – it's mean, whether or not Zayn realizes it.

It's weird that he hesitates. The thing is – Zayn _likes_ Louis, almost as much as Louis likes Zayn. He's quiet about it but he shows it in a thousand different ways, in the casual arms he slings around his shoulders and the way he laughs at his jokes, in the way he plays along with Louis's dumb ideas and lets Louis play along with his. In the way his eyes are almost always warm on Louis's face, in the way his hands are gentle on his arms and cheeks and hair and back, casual ongoing always-there contact that makes Louis feel held close, remembered, important.

Zayn's still waiting for an answer.

"No," Louis says, because ultimately, he knows the answer here. "Of course you aren't."

Zayn nods, not like he's acknowledging the clear fact of it but like he's waiting for Louis to go on. Louis doesn't want to. This entire conversation is so stupid.

"I am, though," Zayn says, when Louis doesn't say anything. "We're yours. I guess we can't –" he falters, throws a look at Liam. "You're the one who decides if you're ours. Obviously. I guess we just assumed, because – that's how it is, that's how pack works. But we're yours. You're our pack. Of course you can leave, if you really want to. But you have to understand that."

It's as much of a lie as Liam's hands on his body, week after week, slow and hot and reverent, as if what they were doing was something more than what it was. A well-meaning lie believing it was truth.

Louis feels so tired. "You're ridiculous," he tells them both. "Nothing about this is mine. You're his and he's yours and – what makes you think there's room for anybody else? Don't you even get how you're –" his gesture doesn't explain any of it, probably, because he doesn't know how to express it, how they live all around each other and in all of each other's open spaces and so suffocatingly close it should make Louis want to run away as quickly as he can. He hates that it only makes him want to burrow into them, that for all that he fights and claws against it he can't help but want it to wash over him. That he can't even tell what part of it is the werewolf thing making him different than he was before. That he can't tell which part of it is just himself, with all his clingy needy bullshit, everything he's always been able to hold in check now flooding out beyond his control.

"That's not true," Liam says. "Of course there's room for you. You think anybody could make there not be room for you? You'd just break down the walls with a sledgehammer until you made yourself some." 

"That's not how that works!"

Liam flinches at the shouting, but he holds steady. "Pretty sure it is," he says. "I don't know how that'd work for anybody else, but you – well. You're you."

"You don't even like me," Louis spits. It's not like it's a secret, but it burns on the way out as though it is.

"You mean you don't like me," Liam says. "But I thought –" he shakes his head, blows out an unhappy breath. "I don't know. I guess for a while I thought we were getting better."

He's probably right, is the thing. The careful slide of his hand under Louis's back as he pulled him up and into himself, the sudden careless joy of his eyes scrunching up in a smile at a comment Louis tossed off without thinking, the low unquestioned hum of contentment through Louis's body on those mornings when they just sat, all three of them, around the table, half-awake or barely even that, talking nonsense or mumbling along or yawning silently, just right – they'd been getting better at _something_ , Louis supposes. That's been the problem, really, making him forget what it was he could have, making him want more.

That's the thing that carried him out the door and down the street and into this building, the thing nipping at his heels all day, ever since he woke up with Liam just-awake in his bed and Zayn too-long gone again and realized all the bullshit he's been feeding himself. 

But it's hard to concentrate on now, somehow. Liam doesn't look gut-punched this time; he doesn't look surprised at all. He just looks tired, and blank, unhappy in a lived-in, well-known way. For the very first time, it occurs to Louis that Liam Payne isn't really someone who's likely to get naked with people whose opinion of him doesn't matter.

"Of course I like you," he says, exasperated and suddenly half-desperate, abruptly driven beyond carefulness by the way Liam is watching him. What's there to still save here, anyway? Not his pride, that's for sure. "You drive me crazy, but it's stupid how much I like you. That just makes it worse."

He looks away from the way Liam's face changes, because it's too much, all the things Louis didn't know and doesn't understand and all the ways it still doesn't matter. 

He almost looks at Zayn instead, but he can't do it. For all his bravado, for all that he'd love to be brave, for all the things he's willing to risk for no good reason, Louis is really a chickenshit when it counts. It's one thing to be fine with some guy having sex with your boyfriend. It's another thing to be fine with the guy who lives in your apartment – the guy who's part of your goddamned pack, the guy who's supposed to be your friend who gives a shit about you – to essentially tell your boyfriend he's in love with him right in front of you. 

And that's not even the worst of it; Zayn doesn't even know how badly Louis has fucked up, he has no idea how much he really wants, how absurdly and all-encompassingly greedy he's let himself become. The idiocy if it, of wanting both of them, of wanting everything from them, like a toddler willing to break everything in sight just to get what he wants.

It's not like he could really break them, anyway, even if he tried. The knowledge hurts, but mostly it's good, mostly he's just overwhelmingly glad.

"So –" Zayn says. Louis chances a glance at him, looks away fast. It's enough to register the rueful half-grin Zayn's quirking at him, inviting him to be part of the joke. "You like him and he likes you, and I like you and you like me, so probably we can just go home now and work this out from there?"

The grin's probably just an admission that he's being flippant, that holding hands in a circle of friendship isn't actually the solution to any of this, but that he's going to hope Louis will follow through. Louis can't help but feel the joke is his entire life, though, whether Zayn knows it or not.

It's so utterly pointless, really; it's not like Louis can tell him any of it. It's not like he can explain how Zayn's skin looks in the afternoon light coming through the big window in their living room, or how he'll give Louis an infuriatingly judgmental eyebrow lift when Louis does something stupid, as if he hasn't been full part of something even stupider just a day before. Nobody here wants to know that the calmest Louis has ever felt is with Zayn's quiet breathing right by his ear, slumped into his side and asleep in the middle of some terrible movie. 

Nobody wants to hear how he wants to look into Zayn's face now, just because he was so determined this morning that he was never going to see it again and he still can't imagine what other way this is going to shake out. How he wants to trace Zayn's eyebrows with his thumbs, slide down the line of his nose, bury his face in the hollow above Zayn's collarbone and just breathe in until everything goes right again. Somebody else's hands belong there, somebody else's breath, and the fact that Louis wants Liam in that image too only makes things worse. There's only space for one person there; even in his imagination he can't make the picture make sense.

"I don't think that's a good idea," he says. There's really nothing else to say at all.

~*~*~

For a moment, Zayn almost believes it's going to work. It's stupid, really, because Louis is much too stubborn for it to be that easy, and they haven't really solved anything. But something about Louis's face, something about how unprepared both he and Liam look at that so-obvious admission, tells Zayn there's a chance there.

But he's wrong, or maybe he just doesn't do it right. Louis just looks sick, and a little caged in, the way he's looked ever since they found him here. He says, "I don't think that's a good idea," and then just stares at the ground, hands in his pockets and shoulders stiff and low, like he's having to stop them from hunching down.

It's so weird. Zayn never thought he knew Louis all the way through, but he'd always thought he understood him on some fundamental level, some kind of instinctive tuning-in they'd developed early on. He thinks now, looking at the way Louis's hands are clearly clenched into fists in his pockets, that maybe he'd put too much faith in how much he really saw. 

When Louis doesn't say anything else, Zayn says, slowly, "I don't think I'm getting this. Why isn't that a good idea?"

Louis barks out a laugh. It sounds bitter. He turns away from them, then turns back, restless. "Because – you _don't_ get it. Just forget it. You shouldn't have come after me."

"Of course it matters," Zayn says. "I just... I don't understand this. Because leaving means you don't want us, that you don't want to be part of this pack. But everything you're saying makes it sound like we don't want _you_ , and that doesn't make any sense at all to me."

Louis doesn't look at him. "What I want isn't on offer."

"You're our pack," Liam says, quiet. "Everything's on offer."

Something in Louis seem to snap just then, his head jerking up to stare Liam down. "What are you even talking about? Of course it isn't."

"I don't know why you won't believe we want you," Zayn says. "It's been almost a year. I knew you were being –" he pauses and can't find the words, because wary isn't enough and guarded isn't quite right and _being Louis_ might not mean the same to Louis himself as it does to Zayn. In the end he shrugs instead, hoping Louis can fill the gap himself. "But I never realized you just – didn't believe us."

"That's not – yes, okay, fine, maybe, but that's not even what –" Louis runs his hand through his hair, blows out a breath. "You can't just go and tell me everything's on offer. Maybe I don't always understand that pack thing, but I know that's not what it means. You can't just be everything to everyone you're pack with. You can't be everything they want. Being pack doesn't help if they want too much."

"I –" Zayn blinks. He turns his head, looks at Liam, who's frowning. "Yeah, I mean, I guess that's true –"

"You guess that's true?" Louis is looking between them, his face slowly turning more and more incredulous. "This isn't exactly advanced stuff, guys. Aren't you supposed to be the experts?"

"No, you're right," Liam says. "But it isn't…" he trails off, stuck, just like Zayn is, on the clear truth of this simple fact, on how much it suddenly doesn't mesh with their actual reality. On what it actually means.

"There's nothing you could want that's too much," Zayn says. There's a weird double echo of realizing the truth of the words as he's saying them, even though he knew them all along; he just never stopped to think about them. He just took them for granted. He just never noticed, somehow, the obvious truth of this – Louis is pack, but the way Zayn feels about him is nothing like the way he felt about Mr. Elsworth down the street or how he felt about his friend Kayla. 

The way he feels about Louis is the way he feels about pack now – the way he feels about Liam, the only point of reference, except Liam is…

Well, they've never really stopped and figured out what he and Liam are, either, really. They're just Pack, the way they've been for as long as they've been alive. Except that doesn't mean what it meant when they were kids, part of a larger whole. It doesn't even mean what it meant when they left home for something they'd never been supposed to want.

"How can you –" Louis says. He sounds short of breath. "Everything I want is too much."

"I think," Liam says, "we've all been pretty stupid." 

Louis stands very still. "You need to explain to me what you mean, right now. Because if you tell me that's what pack means again I'll –"

"No," Zayn says. "You're right. That's not what pack means. We – I don't know, we took the wrong things for granted. But I think – that's what we mean, you and us. If what you want is too much then I think – I think we want too much, too. But I don't think it is too much. I think it's okay –" his confidence breaks, sudden and unexpected. He's assuming so much again. "If that's what you mean. If you want us, both of us, if that's why you were going – if it's only Liam you want, that's okay too, we can figure it out –"

Liam starts to say something, but Louis runs right over him. "Of course I – Zayn, if this is some taking care of the stray bullshit, if you're thinking you owe me something just because I fucked up what this was actually supposed to mean –"

"Don't be such an idiot," Liam says. He takes one step towards Louis, another. Lays his careful, gentle hand on Louis's forearm, just above his wrist. The circle of his fingers is loose, Zayn can see, easy to tug out of if Louis chooses to. "You always have the worst ideas, Tomlinson."

Louis looks down, at where their arms are now dangling between them, linked by that one hopeful point of contact. 

"In a way," he says, slow, almost detached, "this was all my idea. Are you saying it's a bad one?"

"It isn't," Liam says, firm. Zayn thinks he can see his grip tighten a little. Louis makes no move to pull away. "It's the best idea. I'm going to give Zayn credit for it."

"I don't think anybody gets credit for this one," Zayn says. It's a little weird, somehow, to step closer to them. He feels almost shy. A day ago, he'd have said both of their relationships with him were the steady things, that the way they were with each other was the part he still worried over sometimes. But now, in this sudden shifted view, they're something else – a thing that's already existed, been existing, that he has no part of.

He steps closer anyway, because of the still half-stunned look in Louis's eyes and the bright welcoming one in Liam's, because the reason he hasn't crossed the distance before was apparently that he never realized there was distance to be crossed. He lifts his hand to where it fits exactly right against Louis's side, utterly well-known and suddenly new.

Kissing Louis doesn't mean straining up, it only means leaning in a little, letting his face tip down all on its own. Louis's lips are soft and slow and he tastes like he smells, like he is, like Zayn has known him all along. Zayn's still surprised somehow. It seems appropriate.

They kiss for a long time, Liam warm against Zayn's shoulder, their scents mingling together into something he instinctively recognizes as his, as belonging, as something completely right. It seems funny and strange that it took them this long to figure it out.

In the end they break apart, and Louis half-turns to hide his face in Liam's neck, as if looking at Zayn's face is too hard. His hand has ended up on Zayn's back at some point; it stays there, fingers curled into his shirt.

"Please come home," Zayn says, leaning his forehead against the soft hair at the side of Louis's head. He doesn't think he'll be denied, now, but he still feels the need to ask, to say it clearly and hear his answer out loud.

"Okay," Louis says, muffled into Liam's skin, clearly recognizable still. "Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> This story was supposed to be a super-fast, minimum-word-count pinch hit. Instead it grew and grew and grew while I watched in horror and apologized to the mod a lot. And then all the characters decided they were done, apparently, and I had to fight out the rest of it with them digging their heels in and refusing to cooperate. But let's not talk about that! Let's instead talk about the fact that I managed, with some effort, to resist using this summary: "Werewolves mean family. And family means you never have to shut up."
> 
> In other words, I'm really sorry for how late this is.
> 
> Thank you to: the wonderful secretspeller, who did beta reading plus lovely insights and encouragement and patience, and the amazing garnetmantle, who was amazing in all ways, as she never fails to be. All remaining mistakes are definitely my own.
> 
> Title from Jimmy Buffett's Werewolves of London. Did I cackle a little to myself about that? Maybe.


End file.
